Strange Pilgrimage...part 1

...taken in that expansive place between sleep and waking, where consciousness is questionable.

Sometimes, I go to see if Our garden is open. Sometimes, it is only open to memory, like a peek into a photo album. Other times, it is more "real" than that. When I went the other night, I went while still awake enough to direct my own thoughts, but asleep enough to accept whatever came even without my direction. Right away, I was surprised. I could tell it was going to be a guided prayer-session in which my imagination would be employed as in a dream, but in which my still-conscious will would also be engaged. I could tell because for the first time, I found myself outside the gate. I was outside for the first time, that is, since the dream when I ran instinctively in through that gate (at that time under angelic guard) in order to escape dog-like creatures that wanted to destroy me. It strikes me as silly when I type it now, but it was all so symbolic, and had its profound connections with Scripture. So the surprise of being unintentionally (on my part at least) outside the gate led me to think I was dreaming; but then a question was put to my will, and I knew myself to still be awake, for my conscious will was required to make answer. As I stood with my back against that gate, I felt You just behind me, and Your warm breath soothed the back of my neck, but Your words did not soothe as You told me to walk out into the darkness. I clung to the gate with that sense of security a child finds in her mother's skirts, but You reassured me. "I'll come after you. Trust me."

So I stepped away from the gate and began to walk. Heavy on me was the sense that I was leaving the place that grounded me, moving more and more away from the feel of it, and into an unknown darkness that was not home to me.